Publication

This paper focuses on the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), which was the largest independent organization to step in and secure Iraq following the collapse of the state’s armed forces in 2014. The text’s authors specifically review 1) the popularity of the PMF; 2) the different groups that make up the organization, the disputes that divide them, and the Iraqi government’s efforts to control them; 3) what the PMF’s various leadership factions want to do next with their paramilitary power; and 4) the roles the group’s forces might play in intra-Shia struggles for power in Iraq.